Really? Amid all of the budget cuts to academic programs? This is what Michigan State University leadership is going to fundraise for? This is what they're announcing today after hiring a scandal-plagued football coach?
www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/sports...

Also, thanks to the budget cuts many departments are having to justify their graduate programs right now. Michigan State University will likely be eliminating graduate programs. No new generation of professors. This will also tank the rankings of those departments, and of the university.

And that's the thing that gets me: the university can exist without an Athletics Department. Professors and students are the two most essential parts of the university. The Athletics Department needs a university in order to even exist.
Yet, administrators behave as if the opposite is true.

That the Athletics Department demands so much energy from the administration, Board of Trustees, Alumni, and the Media, shows that Athletics is the main priority of Michigan State and and not Education (THE REASON A UNIVERSITY EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE).

The Athletics Department has been bleeding money for 5-6 years. The department is also allegedly in debt for over $100 million. Losing tens of millions of dollars every year for an outrageous Branding Exercise is a waste of resources.

Students can get an excellent education at Michigan State. That's because of the work of the professors and researchers there. The administration is sometimes hostile to them and their vocation. Otherwise, people like Larry Nasar and his boss William Strampel would not have thrived as predators.